I have received and uploaded the final videos of View.Point.2 to YouTube and they are now available in full. Note that they are not in the original order from the event.
Category: Others Poetry
Very grateful to have the View.Point.2 recordings uploading to the ‘Tube. Many thanks to Amy Billharz and David Goodman for their recording efforts. Playlist below! As of this writing, 2/3 of the videos are up.
I am happy to announce that another re drum poem, “ARREST,” is now live thanks to The Writing Disorder.
Since last August, I have had the pleasure of writing alongside (and publishing alongside) the re drum group Alex Bleecker, Jeremy Springsteed, and Willie James, as well as good friend Justine Chan. Our efforts on exploring the cadralore form have yielded some output, now available to view in Another New Calligraphy.
Recorded on Friday, April 22, 2022 at Kezira Cafe in Seattle, alongside the Jim O’Halloran Trio (Jim O’Halloran (Flute), Dean Schmidt (Bass), and Ehssan Karimi (Drums)).
I am very pleased to announce my reading of Haibun de la Serna, the latest release from Paul E. Nelson and an incredible addition to his canon (one that, it is astounding to say, has been over a decade in the making).
A couple nights ago I had the pleasure of reading a poem with the Jim O’Halloran Trio at Kezira Cafe in Columbia City, Seattle. The poem, “Return to Rain,” is linked below. Here’s the segment of the set with the reading:
And some larger selections of the show.
Sadly, the focus was set to auto and was doing some really weird stuff in the low-light room. The sound isn’t perfect either, but better than null!
And here’s the poem:
In March 2021, I was gifted a box of The Moon’s Jaw from the author, who had sat on the book for years and was in the process of leaving the Seattle area for parts unknown. A splendid book, I was not told what to do with the truly massive number of copies of a collection of poetry published years ago without a clear audience. I found homes for a few of them thanks to friends and libraries I frequent. I was left with 54.
In the middle of April 2021, I came up with an idea. Rather than holding onto this box of poetry for an unknown and potentially unlimited period of time, I would systematically look at distributing the books via the Little Free Library network in Seattle. I did not look up the libraries I would visit ahead of time en masse, rather opting for a more organic/spontaneous was of distribution as fit my schedule.
I have created a map of the locations here. Note the locations are listed as intersections, as I did not have the exact addresses for each library.
I did not consult with Rauan Klassnik throughout the process, instead hoping this would be a mildly delightful/dreadful surprise when announced.
It is my hope that the Seattle Metropolitan Area will come to love Rauan Klassnik, who has (had?) been a local literary gem in the rough, whose poetic influence might improve/derail the lives of many in the quaint little neighborhoods that house such little libraries.
Images showing proof of this distribution are embedded below.
A post on the current state of poetry in Myanmar has been published in Poetry NW. This follows a brief exchange with Maung Day prior to his ducking into hiding and the cutting off of internet in the country. I’m grateful to Bill Carty for working with me on this piece–to bring light to the struggles and the work within Myanmar, and to continue to foster the connection I developed with the writers I first met years ago.
I’m excited to have received a copy of the latest Rain Taxi in my mailbox this weekend. The Spring 2021 issue features two book reviews concerning the poetry of the Serbian poet Marija Knežević (Breathing Technique, from Zephyr Press), and the Spanish Agustín Fernández Mallo (Pixel Flesh, Cardboard House Press). You can order a copy from via the Rain Taxi website.
A very large group of poets across Myanmar have collected their voices in a single video embedded below. The link follows the death of K Za Win, and the oppression of many other poet activists and activists generally in the country over the last several months following the military coup. All of this strikes me personally as I met K Za Win back when I visited Myanmar, and had a chance to exchange poetry with him and other Monywa-based poets.
I thank Maung Day, who is as of today both safe and actively organizing, for taking time to share the video with me.
All the Useless Things Are Mine, featuring poetry by Thomas Walton and etchings/drawings by Douglas Miller, is an exquisite book, and I’m pleased that my review of it is now up at North of Oxford.
Two of my latest reviews are now in the print edition of Rain Taxi, now available for purchase.
- Earth by Hannah Brooks-Motl
- Codex by Joshua Lew McDermott
Both are excellent books. Please consider reading them and reading what I wrote about them!
I’m excited to relay that my friend Maung Day’s short prose poems have found a home at the magazine for Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s Transpacific Literary Project. “There are cities in his scabs: Prose poems” can be read in their mystery and mystification here.